Student

It’s the no-nonsense filmmaking, seamlessly integrating even dreams and visions, that keeps us fixed on the bold line of the student’s trajectory, all the way through to a transcendent ending.

There’s much to admire in the film’s elegantly classical tempo and the way Omirbayev achieves so much with so little.

Psychological violence is constantly present and reflected in the film's physical violence, which is typically suggested rather than seen.

A sense of existential dread that would make the Russkie novelist beam is channeled beautifully, but for a filmmaker lauded for his minimalist aesthetic, Omirbayev sure loves broad-stroke symbolism and sloganeering.

Kazakh cinema's stalwart auteur Darzhan Omirbaev adapts Crime and Punishment to modern-day Almaty, but with little to say beyond the obvious.

Omirbaev fails to invest either the murder plot or its political subtext with much suspense or conviction.